Perfect Life
by AaronSec
Summary: Life isnt perfect, not by a long shot, but it does have those perfect moments.


It was finally perfect. My life was at a good point for the first time in a while. I'd fought for this moment and yet it was something so far that I didn't think I'd be alive for it.

My best friend was home and was slowly healing, we'll as much as his antisocial ass could.

My teacher that was a consistent strong figure in my life was safe. Taking it easy after years of service.

My friend/former crush was happy not only with me but with her budding relationship.

I admit it was weird to get used to the different air when my best friend started dating her but hey, they are happy so I am too.

It was starting to feel like I was safe, home. So you can understand my predicament when I walk into a heated argument just outside our 'spot' (training ground).

I didn't know what to do, it happened so fast. We were meeting for a regular training session but Sasuke and Sakura were both lost in their own world.

"Are you even listening to me?" Sakura was seething, her fist were shaking and I for one am glad I'm not in front if her.

"Hn." Just as usual Sasuke seems emotionless, seems.

"Sasuke this isn't normal!" Her arms are swinging now but just to air her frustration, slinging them up.

Sasuke looks pained for a slit second only to glare coldly at her instead, "what more do you want. I'm here aren't I?"

"No! No you aren't 'here'! You still there and you won't TALK about it!"

Sasuke doesn't retort instead he looks like he's just going to ignore her. That just infuriates her even more.

"You wake up screaming. Screaming, Sasuke! I need...," she takes a breathe, fianlly calming a bit, "I need you to get help. You hear me? Actual honest to Kami help." She pleading with him now.

For a moment it looks like he just might conceed, his eyes close and he sighs long and hard, and I walk forward. Looks like it over.

Except it's not. Far from it actually.

"I can't do this anymore. Not with you."

And he's walking away.

Sakura looks shocked but doesn't follow him. She starts sobbing softly and falls on her knees and as much as I want to comfort her, Sasuke looked...weird.

So I run after him instead. I see him walk further into the woods surrounding the training ground and jump out in front of him, "Sasuke wait!"

He doesn't looked surprised to see me, "Naruto.."

"What the hell was that! You just... what just happened!"

He shakes his head, "Nothing that wasn't eventually going to happen."

"I thought you guys were happy! What happened, Sasuke..."

His shoulder shook and for a minute I thought he was going to laugh in my face but that not Sasuke like.

Imagine my surprise when instead he speaks soft, his voice breaking halfway through, "I couldn't do it.."

"...T-Teme? Do what?"

He rushes up fast and I flinch back, his hands stop me from moving much when they grabbed my shoulders hard. "It wasn't fair! I... I care, I really do but this, it was KILLING me!"

I don't know what to do, Sasuke's face is flushed and his eyes look slightly crazed. Maybe Sakura was right and he needed help.

I grab his shoulders and push him away a bit, "...okay, okay Sasuke-teme I get it. Just..we should head back okay?" He seems to have simmered down now so I turn him around, "Then you and Sakura-chan can tell me what's going o-"

Before I could lead him back he moves again, only this time he has me on the ground. I'm confused as to what's going on and all I see is red. Wait, red?

Sasuke is looking at me, no he's glowering at me with his sharingan. I feeling a burn in my chest and a pounding in my head, only then do I realize that Sasuke, my best friend, is squeezing my neck. Both of his hands are wrapped tight around my throat and one knee is pining me to the ground, pressing on my chest so hard I swear my ribs could cave in.

I gasp, trying to get air in while my hands tug at his, scratching at his arms and pushing his face away trying to get free.

He doesn't even look like he sees me. Black dots fill my vision and just when I can feel my self losing conciousness he let's go.

Except he hadn't, Sakura had come back and slammed Sasuke off, tossing him through two trees before he slumped down, unconscious.

I turn over wheezing and coughing as air rushes in. All the sound around me is a loud buzzing but soon I can focus on Sakura again.

"-aruto, Naruto! Are you alright?!"

"Y-Yea, Yes I'm.. I'm fine Sakura-chan, but Sasuke...Teme he..," I look towards him but he's still knocked out cold, "what the fuck just happened!"

Sakura looks sad, "I..He..," she took a deep breath in, "He's been acting strange for a couple of months now. I thought it was just...I thought he was just having a hard time ajusting to life again, but it just keeps getting worse.

At first it was just the nightmares! And the waking up screaming but lately he's be waking up at random hours of the night and just staring."

She looked reluctant to say anything more, "Sakura...what else happened."

"...about 5 nights ago he started coming home...covered in blood, and it wasn't his own. Every time his sharingan was activated."

"Y-you can't mean...that he, that he's been killing people right? Sakura?"

Her voice broke as she retold what she witnessed, "yesterday I thought maybe he had been getting attacked or had found some bandits around to take care of but... Naruto he broke into a civilians home and...a-and..." she covered her face, sobbing now, "they were a family! T-there were kids! And he just... oh Kami he SLAUGHTERED them! All but ONE! He was fucking smiling!"

I felt cold. It couldn't be true. Besides the obvious moral reasons, Sasuke would do this! He wouldnt! He knew what it meant to have a family lost to you!

"T-this... this has to be about his br-brother. Maybe he did something in their last fight!" Yes! That has to be it! Sasuke-teme would do this. "We can get him help! Maybe it's like some residual genjutsu or something! Right?"

Sakura shook he head, "No...when he came back they checked him. He didn't have anything thing wrong with his chakra or physically."

We both looked at our friend, our teammate, our family. It just wasn't possible. We both agreed to have him checked out mentally. His initial prognosis when he came back was good, if a little on the dark side but nothing to hint a mental illness, so they let him go.

A recheck showed signs of Sasuke suffering from a psychotic break. He couldn't tell people apart anymore. The murders were him replaying his family's death. His brothers death only served to push him further off the brink.

They said the confusion of Itachi's true objective and his love for his brother regardless of his crimes against him made it so Sasuke could no longer recognize friend from foe.

Sasuke was committed to a psych ward.

That was the first crack in the 'perfect moment'. Sakura threw herself into her work as a medic and visited Sasuke every chance she got. He no longer recognized her instead he just stared at her for hours on end, emotionless and broken, drugged further out of his mind. Naruto only visited once or twice a month. He couldn't bear to see him like that.

Those visits stopped almost immediately after Kakashi-sensei's death. It had been a true shinobi death, a final mission. He'd gone down protecting his team.

Sakura's death had been unexpected. She'd been visiting Sasuke when it had become too much for her. She had opening his locked room and before the staff could come in, Sasuke had snapped her neck.

In a moment of lucidity, Sasuke realizing what he had done had run out of his room and kept running, straight threw a window. Out the 10 floor of the facility.

His life wasn't so perfect anymore. It had been only a small moment of lull, a fluke.


End file.
